Catch of the Day
Feb. 25th, 2006 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of Lazar's shadake game. Halfway through the combat, he decided that the 'extended damage' rules were too confusing and slow, and got rid of them. Coincidentally, that made it very easy for the enemies to capture us. They probably would have anyway at that point, though, since our transportation was wrecked.
Upon seeing the army -- the camp much closer than was reasonable for them to have noticed it, but it was just starting to get light, and the kid had been fooling around with a sound-dampening device Balthazaar had apparently made out of Wayne's feathers -- the first thought was to hide the kid. So Wayne grabbed him and opened the door to take him back to the cart with the hidden compartment -- and found himself face to face with a half dozen crossbowmen.
"There's the kid!" they shouted, firing as Wayne shut the door. Jeff, panicked, blacked out the entire inside of the cart, while Wayne, panicked, set up his decoy and gave it grenades, to suicidally 'welcome' the first few soldiers through the door. Meanwhile, Perrel spotted a bunch of other soldiers on the other side of the cart, through the (somewhat hidden) door on the other side...
Unfortuantely, while Wayne's trap did take out a couple of the guards, it also destabilized the basket-of-holding the cart was built around, which exploded in a puff of sticks and boards, scattering the party across twenty feet of ground, among the soldiers. Now their grenades were useless, and they were forced to go hand to hand... and the soldiers' weapons were very nastily poisoned with a drug that made people give up and stop fighting.
They took out quite a few, but in the end everyone was either poisoned or surrendered, and woke up in a big cage... except for Wayne, who'd fuzzed out 'following the kid'. He woke up in a tree, watching the general pay the soldiers for Jeff's capture and put him, drugged, in a very magical cage. No one seemed to notice him, so he stood very still until everyone wandered away, then dug through his satchel for the 'inconspicuous' device he'd built for use in the city.
Using that, he blended in with the encampment and starter gathering information. The army was from a city near Jirae (to the north of it) which (he found out) like Jirae had decided to allow 'good' magic while outlawing witchcraft. Only, instead of basing the judgment on the magic's function, they based it on the method of creating the magic -- enhancing natural magic was allowed, but making entirely new effects was EVIL because that's what mages did. They'd taken the party's remaining wagons with them, and examined their magitech items, and pronounced them witches indeed, slated for imprisonment or execution, depending on how the trial went.
So they had to escape. Preferably, with the kid in tow, since (once Wayne got in touch with the others in the cage and told them what was up) Perrel was pretty sure that keeping the kid drugged like that would do serious damage to him. The cage was badly made, out of wood, so escape would be easy if they could make themselves and/or the cage inconspicuous for long enough to set up decoys (which Wayne would have to make, since the old ones were too fragile). As for the kid... well, they could blow up the antimagic cage and leave a decoy for him, too.
Chochang was missing, and no one knew why. This wasn't the first time she'd mysteriously not been captured with the rest of them, though.
The first step was for Wayne to gather materials and the more advanced inconspicuousness devices that Jardin had made for use in the city (and Balthazaar had miniaturized) that were last seen in the danger room. Unfortuantely, the cart was guarded. Fortunately, there were people working inside, so Wayne was able to bluff his way in as someone doing an errand related to them. Unfortunately, they'd already found the inconspicuousness devices and were in the process of catalogueing them. Fortunately, Wayne was able to get his hands on one and turn it on before being perforated by crossbow bolts.
Unfortunately, the people examining their magitech were magictechnicians themselves, and their leader started making an anti-inconspicuousness device out of the 'very evil' magitech things. Wayne watched him work for long enough to figure out what he was doing (and start coveting his tools, which seemed to be able to spin metal wire out of thin air), but then had to get the needed materials and leave before the device was finished and unmasked him.
Still, the plan could proceed. Wayne made the decoys, and a remote detonator for their remaining bombs, while Roshan made some extra bombs and (with the other inconspicuousness device Wayne had managed to liberate) the two of them scooted around the encampment after dark, setting bombs to disable the carts and scare off all the horses -- and, more importantly, draw attention away from the cage so that the others could set up their decoys and get away.
Before they were finished, though, the dragon arrived, landing on the cage and ripping it open, happily and loudly pronouncing that he was there to free Perrel. This drew all attention right to the cage, which was the opposite of what they wanted...
Worse, the kid was missing -- someone else had *already stolen him*.
So they set off their bombs, which with all the fire and splinters and glue was enough to let them get away, albeit in several different directions. While coordinating them (as he could easily find them using the magitech eye Balthazaar had made for him) Wayne spotted a very well camoflauged Chochang holding a struggling burlap sack. Had she been the one to snag the kid? He told her to rendezvous with them at a nearby hill so that they could run the hell away. She answered cryptically -- "Maybe once things have settled down. Damn your eye!"
As they finished escaping, they saw the rest of the other attackers' plan go into action -- the skeleton (which no one else could seem to see) ripped a bunch of limbs from children, and scattered them in the antimagic cage, which was also blown up -- making it look like the kid had been killed. Unfortuantely, the army wasn't fooled, and once things settled down they saw the grasshopper knights take off in a random direction -- which the mage-seeking compass revealed was the direction the kid had been taken. Obviously, he no longer had his anti-finder item by now.
"Okay. Let me get this straight. We were rescuing the kid to take him back to Jirae, but were captured by the army, who wanted to take him back toa country right next to Jirae. Now, Balthazaar (most likely) has him, and is taking him back to Jirae." The route they'd deciphered from Balthazaar's notes, which seemed to lead to the old seat of government, started from the vicinity of Jirae.
The party made another raid into the camp to steal back one of their wagons (Roshan made the whole wagon inconspicuous, and they sealed the levicus plating and floated it right out of camp), which got them back a forge, an alchemy set, and most of their supplies. Unforutanately, the truly *valuable* treasure (especially the roomfull of levicus) was being guarded by the enemy magictech person with the anti-inconspicuousness item, and they weren't willing to risk attacking him to get it back.
"Oh no, we're poor! All we have left is this solid gold cart!"
"Don't forget the year's worth of magitech supplies it's loaded with."
But, at any rate, they weren't the army's first priority, and figured they could probably just sort of sneak off and forget about the whole thing, if they wanted. But they weren't really sure if they wanted -- the kid's prophecies if he was captured had been very dire, and Balthazaar surely would have let them in on his plan if it was something reasonable.
So it was time to do some divination.
last session | next session
Lazar gave us homework, to come up with the sort of divination we'd do, and what questions we'd ask.
Upon seeing the army -- the camp much closer than was reasonable for them to have noticed it, but it was just starting to get light, and the kid had been fooling around with a sound-dampening device Balthazaar had apparently made out of Wayne's feathers -- the first thought was to hide the kid. So Wayne grabbed him and opened the door to take him back to the cart with the hidden compartment -- and found himself face to face with a half dozen crossbowmen.
"There's the kid!" they shouted, firing as Wayne shut the door. Jeff, panicked, blacked out the entire inside of the cart, while Wayne, panicked, set up his decoy and gave it grenades, to suicidally 'welcome' the first few soldiers through the door. Meanwhile, Perrel spotted a bunch of other soldiers on the other side of the cart, through the (somewhat hidden) door on the other side...
Unfortuantely, while Wayne's trap did take out a couple of the guards, it also destabilized the basket-of-holding the cart was built around, which exploded in a puff of sticks and boards, scattering the party across twenty feet of ground, among the soldiers. Now their grenades were useless, and they were forced to go hand to hand... and the soldiers' weapons were very nastily poisoned with a drug that made people give up and stop fighting.
They took out quite a few, but in the end everyone was either poisoned or surrendered, and woke up in a big cage... except for Wayne, who'd fuzzed out 'following the kid'. He woke up in a tree, watching the general pay the soldiers for Jeff's capture and put him, drugged, in a very magical cage. No one seemed to notice him, so he stood very still until everyone wandered away, then dug through his satchel for the 'inconspicuous' device he'd built for use in the city.
Using that, he blended in with the encampment and starter gathering information. The army was from a city near Jirae (to the north of it) which (he found out) like Jirae had decided to allow 'good' magic while outlawing witchcraft. Only, instead of basing the judgment on the magic's function, they based it on the method of creating the magic -- enhancing natural magic was allowed, but making entirely new effects was EVIL because that's what mages did. They'd taken the party's remaining wagons with them, and examined their magitech items, and pronounced them witches indeed, slated for imprisonment or execution, depending on how the trial went.
So they had to escape. Preferably, with the kid in tow, since (once Wayne got in touch with the others in the cage and told them what was up) Perrel was pretty sure that keeping the kid drugged like that would do serious damage to him. The cage was badly made, out of wood, so escape would be easy if they could make themselves and/or the cage inconspicuous for long enough to set up decoys (which Wayne would have to make, since the old ones were too fragile). As for the kid... well, they could blow up the antimagic cage and leave a decoy for him, too.
Chochang was missing, and no one knew why. This wasn't the first time she'd mysteriously not been captured with the rest of them, though.
The first step was for Wayne to gather materials and the more advanced inconspicuousness devices that Jardin had made for use in the city (and Balthazaar had miniaturized) that were last seen in the danger room. Unfortuantely, the cart was guarded. Fortunately, there were people working inside, so Wayne was able to bluff his way in as someone doing an errand related to them. Unfortunately, they'd already found the inconspicuousness devices and were in the process of catalogueing them. Fortunately, Wayne was able to get his hands on one and turn it on before being perforated by crossbow bolts.
Unfortunately, the people examining their magitech were magictechnicians themselves, and their leader started making an anti-inconspicuousness device out of the 'very evil' magitech things. Wayne watched him work for long enough to figure out what he was doing (and start coveting his tools, which seemed to be able to spin metal wire out of thin air), but then had to get the needed materials and leave before the device was finished and unmasked him.
Still, the plan could proceed. Wayne made the decoys, and a remote detonator for their remaining bombs, while Roshan made some extra bombs and (with the other inconspicuousness device Wayne had managed to liberate) the two of them scooted around the encampment after dark, setting bombs to disable the carts and scare off all the horses -- and, more importantly, draw attention away from the cage so that the others could set up their decoys and get away.
Before they were finished, though, the dragon arrived, landing on the cage and ripping it open, happily and loudly pronouncing that he was there to free Perrel. This drew all attention right to the cage, which was the opposite of what they wanted...
Worse, the kid was missing -- someone else had *already stolen him*.
So they set off their bombs, which with all the fire and splinters and glue was enough to let them get away, albeit in several different directions. While coordinating them (as he could easily find them using the magitech eye Balthazaar had made for him) Wayne spotted a very well camoflauged Chochang holding a struggling burlap sack. Had she been the one to snag the kid? He told her to rendezvous with them at a nearby hill so that they could run the hell away. She answered cryptically -- "Maybe once things have settled down. Damn your eye!"
As they finished escaping, they saw the rest of the other attackers' plan go into action -- the skeleton (which no one else could seem to see) ripped a bunch of limbs from children, and scattered them in the antimagic cage, which was also blown up -- making it look like the kid had been killed. Unfortuantely, the army wasn't fooled, and once things settled down they saw the grasshopper knights take off in a random direction -- which the mage-seeking compass revealed was the direction the kid had been taken. Obviously, he no longer had his anti-finder item by now.
"Okay. Let me get this straight. We were rescuing the kid to take him back to Jirae, but were captured by the army, who wanted to take him back toa country right next to Jirae. Now, Balthazaar (most likely) has him, and is taking him back to Jirae." The route they'd deciphered from Balthazaar's notes, which seemed to lead to the old seat of government, started from the vicinity of Jirae.
The party made another raid into the camp to steal back one of their wagons (Roshan made the whole wagon inconspicuous, and they sealed the levicus plating and floated it right out of camp), which got them back a forge, an alchemy set, and most of their supplies. Unforutanately, the truly *valuable* treasure (especially the roomfull of levicus) was being guarded by the enemy magictech person with the anti-inconspicuousness item, and they weren't willing to risk attacking him to get it back.
"Oh no, we're poor! All we have left is this solid gold cart!"
"Don't forget the year's worth of magitech supplies it's loaded with."
But, at any rate, they weren't the army's first priority, and figured they could probably just sort of sneak off and forget about the whole thing, if they wanted. But they weren't really sure if they wanted -- the kid's prophecies if he was captured had been very dire, and Balthazaar surely would have let them in on his plan if it was something reasonable.
So it was time to do some divination.
last session | next session
Lazar gave us homework, to come up with the sort of divination we'd do, and what questions we'd ask.
